Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by the impairment of cognitive functions and by beta amyloid (Abeta) plaques in the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus. Our objective was to determine genes that are critical for cellular changes in AD progression, with particular emphasis on changes early in disease progression. We investigated an established amyloid precursor protein (APP) transgenic mouse model (the Tg2576 mouse model) for gene expression profiles at three stages of disease progression: long before (2 months of age), immediately before (5 months) and after (18 months) the appearance of Abeta plaques. Using cDNA microarray techniques, we measured mRNA levels in 11 283 cDNA clones from the cerebral cortex of Tg2576 mice and age-matched wild-type (WT) mice at each of the three time points. This gene expression analysis revealed that the genes related to mitochondrial energy metabolism and apoptosis were up-regulated in 2-month-old Tg2576 mice and that the same genes were up-regulated at 5 and 18 months of age. These microarray results were confirmed using northern blot analysis. Results from in situ hybridization of mitochondrial genes-ATPase-6, heat-shock protein 86 and programmed cell death gene 8-suggest that the granule cells of the hippocampal dentate gyrus and the pyramidal neurons in the hippocampus and the cerebral cortex are up-regulated in Tg2576 mice compared with WT mice. Results from double-labeling in situ hybridization suggest that in Tg2576 mice only selective, over-expressed neurons with the mitochondrial gene ATPase-6 undergo oxidative damage. These results, therefore, suggest that mitochondrial energy metabolism is impaired by the expression of mutant APP and/or Abeta, and that the up-regulation of mitochondrial genes is a compensatory response. These findings have important implications for understanding the mechanism of Abeta toxicity in AD and for developing therapeutic strategies for AD.

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Our results indicate that chronic ethanol treatment of cortical neurons resulted in decreased mRNA expression of genes involving the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway and ribosomal proteins together with mTOR expression leading to disruption of protein degradation mechanism and impairment of protein synthesis machinery.

Objective Systemic sclerosis (SSc) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are related chronic autoimmune diseases of complex aetiology in which the interferon (IFN) pathway plays a key role. Recent studies have reported an association between IRF7 and SLE which confers a risk to autoantibody production. A study was undertaken to investigate whether the IRF7 genomic region is also involved in susceptibility to SSc and the main clinical features. Methods Two case-control sets of Caucasian origin from the USA and Spain, comprising a total of 2316 cases of SSc and 2347 healthy controls, were included in the study. Five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the PHRF1-IRF7-CDHR5 locus were genotyped using TaqMan allelic discrimination technology. A meta-analysis was performed to test the overall effect of these genetic variants on SSc. Results Four out of five analysed SNPs were Significantly associated with the presence of anticentromere autoantibodies (ACA) in the patients with SSc in the combined analysis (rs1131665: pFDR=6.14 × 10−4, OR=0.78; rs4963128: pFDR=6.14 × 10−4, OR=0.79; rs702966: pFDR=3.83 × 10−3, OR=0.82; and rs2246614: pFDR=3.83 × 10−3, OR=0.83). Significant p values were also obtained when the disease was tested globally; however, the statistical significance was lost when the ACA-positive patients were excluded from the study, suggesting that these associations rely on ACA positivity. Conditional logistic regression and allelic combination analyses suggested that the functional IRF7 SNP rs1131665 is the most likely causal variant. Conclusions The results show that variation in the IRF7 genomic region is associated with the presence of ACA in patients with SSc, supporting other evidence that this locus represents a common risk factor for autoantibody production in autoimmune diseases.

A pathway-focused complementary DNA microarray and gene ontology analysis were used to investigate gene expression profiles in the amygdala, hippocampus, nucleus accumbens, prefrontal cortex (PFC) and ventral tegmental area of C3H/HeJ and C57BL/6J mice receiving nicotine in drinking water (100 μg/ml in 2% saccharin for 2 weeks). A balanced experimental design and rigorous statistical analysis have led to the identification of 3.5-22.1% and 4.1-14.3% of the 638 sequence-verified genes as significantly modulated in the aforementioned brain regions of the C3H/HeJ and C57BL/6J strains, respectively. Comparisons of differential expression among brain tissues showed that only a small number of genes were altered in multiple brain regions, suggesting presence of a brain region-specific transcriptional response to nicotine. Subsequent principal component analysis and Expression Analysis Systematic Explorer analysis showed significant enrichment of biological processes both in C3H/HeJ and C57BL/6J mice, i.e. cell cycle/proliferation, organogenesis and transmission of nerve impulse. Finally, we verified the observed changes in expression using real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction for six representative genes in the PFC region, providing an independent replication of our microarray results. Together, this report represents the first comprehensive gene expression profiling investigation of the changes caused by nicotine in brain tissues of the two mouse strains known to exhibit differential behavioral and physiological responses to nicotine. © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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Previous human and animal studies demonstrate that acute nicotine exposure has complicated influences on the function of the nervous system, which may lead to long-lasting effects on the behavior and physiology of the subject. To determine the genes and pathways that might account for long-term changes after acute nicotine exposure, a pathway-focused oligoarray specifically designed for drug addiction research was used to assess acute nicotine effect on gene expression in the neuron-like SH-SY5Y cells. Our results showed that 295 genes involved in various biological functions were differentially regulated by 1 h of nicotine treatment. Among these genes, the expression changes of 221 were blocked by mecamylamine, indicating that the majority of nicotine-modulated genes were altered through the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs)-mediated signaling process. We further identified 14 biochemical pathways enriched among the nicotine-modulated genes, among which were those involved in neural development/synaptic plasticity, neuronal survival/death, immune response, or cellular metabolism. In the genes significantly regulated by nicotine but blocked by mecamylamine, 13 enriched pathways were detected. Nine of these pathways were shared with those enriched in the genes regulated by nicotine, including neuronal function-related pathways such as glucocorticoid receptor signaling, p38 MAPK signaling, PI3K/AKT signaling, and PTEN signaling, implying that nAChRs play important roles in the regulation of these biological processes. Together, our results not only provide insights into the mechanism underlying the acute response of neuronal cells to nicotine but also provide clues to how acute nicotine exposure exerts long-term effects on the nervous system.